Clearing the Hurdles

March 2009

Just when you thought that spring might arrive early, a good old fashioned Minnesota snowstorm drops a new layer of the white stuff.  Hopefully the sun will come back out again soon and melt it off.  With the 2009 season just around the corner, it would sure be nice if Mother Nature would cooperate.  Speaking of cooperation, the Track & Field Advisory board met recently with our MSHSL Liaison, Jody Redman.  The majority of the meeting revolved around our proposal to increase Track & Field in Minnesota from two classes to three classes of competition.  As we discussed at the January Clinic meeting, the results of the survey of Track coaches showed a strong support to propose three classes.  However, there was also an overwhelming response of no to the question of proposing three classes if it meant having to give up qualifying standards.  There was also an overwhelming response of no to the question of proposing three classes if it meant having only one entrant of each section instead of the current two.  Those two points were central to the discussion we had with Jody Redman.  The MSHSL does not think that it is possible to run the 3-class meet in two or three days at one venue unless qualifying standards are removed and there are no prelims.  The suggestion put forward from the MSHSL was to have four “super-sections” which would advance athletes to the finals at the state meet.  It basically boiled down to a discussion of cost.  We can propose any number of classes that we want, but there will be no increase in the number of athletes that advance to the state meet.  There will be some further discussion, but it doesn’t look promising at this point. 

Beyond the 3-class proposal, some other items were discussed.  The MSHSL is leaning towards eliminating all rules interpretation meetings with officials and doing it all online.  The idea is to make sure that everyone gets the same message and it will save a significant amount of money.  If you have a viewpoint one way or the other, please contact your AD’s on this issue.  We expressed our desire to continue to have the face to face meetings to provide the opportunity to ask questions directly.  We are also recommending that there be a warm-up area near the vertical jumps at the State Meet so that those jumpers are not confined to such a small area.  We also made a recommendation regarding hurdle warm-up space. 

There is also a movement within the MSHSL to have some spring sports move their schedules further into the summer, including Track & Field.  That would cause the start date of the season to move another week later and the state meet to be a week later in June.  Please contact your AD’s and our MSHSL Board representatives John Schumacher and Mindy Sparby about this issue to express your views.

Don’t forget that you must have your roster certified and entered online by March 19^th!!!

Keep working hard to give our student-athletes a great experience in Track & Field, and I hope you all have a successful 2009 season!

Dave Wieber

Faribault High School

President – Minnesota Track Coaches Assn.